Photo Credit: Hu Jundi The Story of a Girl and a Crane, myaloysius.tumblr.com

7.

Now, I imagine you were always there with me.

I would drive to the mall in the late morning light, as you stretched and yawned,
buy a pot of tea from the bookstore, sit beside you,
framed in the bright yawn of the window. From there, you and
I could see out into the bluish woods, where we sometimes liked to walk;
could see where they met the sky in their flowering. I loved you. I loved you.
I swear, I was always remembering you–

where you are, what you are thinking.

Your fingers fidget and tear the label on a water bottle.
Did you dream, last night, of the smell of gravel
from your childhood home?
You bite your lip, brush your hair from your brow.
When you look in the mirror, do you feel

real? Alive, full of thoughts and blood, and real?
Are you grey, and lonely, and perfect like a God,
or arrogant, like a young hero? It is true

the roughness of your sand-brown skin tastes of sweat; of every beautiful, unknowable regret.

I imagine you old. I imagine you young.
But, mostly, I imagine you as you are now– always slipping, always receding into the distance like water.

Today, I imagine you seated across from me,
every detail.
You squint at me through your glasses.

“Come,” you said. “Swim back to me, as you were at the beginning of the world.”

Years ago, I spent my summer in the arms of books,
and during this time I spoke to no one.

Every day, I walked through New Brunswick, a slim paperback tucked under my elbow like a good secret. Every day, the greasy light that caught color from the blooming trees was a small revelation. I loved the smell:

basil, sap, and baking bread. Flowers, paper, rain, salt, and oil.

Every day, I drank a cup of coffee in the sunshine, and watched the students.

[They laughed, touched their hair. They stacked bicycle baskets with books and bouquets, and rode whistling through the yellow wind. They walked their dogs, and tied them outside of the cafes where they ordered iced tea and sandwiches. Under plastic umbrellas, they waved their hands like leafy shadows; talked about classes and boyfriends and rain.]

Every day, biting my pen to bleeding, I tried to build this all into a climbing cathedral of remembrance. I thought I could trap those afternoons in my notebook,

like a net hauling in sunlight from the backs of waves.
I’ve always been greedy. I’ve always wanted to keep every sensation
preserved in amber.

I can smell your soul in the salt-blooming of your blood;
imagine, if I drink you,

your memories will swim me through like semen.

I grip your sandy hair, and tug it, hard; bring your forehead pressed to mine .You tense. I soothe my fingers over your sweat-breathed neck, your arms, your back, and I am an ocean of regret and love, surged, swollen with an ache undying. I will not hurt you, only ever make you

feel, and feel
alive.

My mouth rounds yours, and I can feel your tongue move to swallow dryly. The solidity of your existence overwhelms me. I must do this. I bite your lip, aware of your breath, muddy with love as it quickens. Your heated heartbeat is

miraculous

as anything:
the pulsing sun, a yolk,
ice melt, rosewater, a fever,
a fetus, a dreaming,

One girl leaves; heaves against the door with her back.
Her thin arms are crossed around some books.
A flowering of bells mourns her departure. Cold wind rushes inside, a ghost to replace her.
I watch the girl walk , through the glass.